The Buffaloes and Eagles went into Monday’s games poised to sweep their series and completely throw the PL pennant race in complete disarray, while DeNA played the Giants in the only CL game that was not disrupted by a typhoon, and needing a win to shave a half-game off the idle Yakult Swallows’ lead.
Let’s get to ‘em.
Buffaloes 5, Hawks 4, 10 innings: At Osaka Dome, Masataka Yoshida drove in four runs, including two with a first-inning home run, his 19th, off Nao Higashihama, who allowed four in two-plus innings. Yoshida’s third-inning RBI single made it 4-0 and chased the Hawks starter.
Tuesday, we had more mashing from Japan’s home run monster, although he twice failed to hit his fifth grand slam of the season in another Swallows marathon, and a top three vs bottom three set of series in the Pacific League.
Hawks 4, Eagles 2: At Fukuoka Dome, Hideto Asamura opened the scoring with a first-inning solo homer, his 24th, off 41-year-old lefty Tsuyoshi Wada (5-4), who allowed two runs over five innings to win his second straight start. Eagles starter Ryota Takinaka (2-8) gave up back-to-back singles to open the first as the Hawks tied it 1-1. Back-to-back one-out singles in the third set up Yuki Yanagita for an RBI single, and Masaki Mimori tripled in two with two outs in the fourth.
